Yeah but you're unemployed for reading your bosses email after work when you should have been sweeping the floors and emptying the waste baskets. I win! You lose because you're a loser. Probably related to 5tooler or something. Sick life.

Every advice I ever received from a professional is that they're fairly pointless.

The goal of a lot of financial professionals with regards to college is to get as much paid for as you can. 529 goes right to the school. Plus, no real guarantee that any one of my kids will go to college, or go without some sort of a scholarship. I mean, i think they'll go, but I can't guarantee it to the point that I want to lock 10k a year up in something that will be penalized if you don't use it for schooling.

Plus, I'm still paying off loans at 33. Its not killing me....won't kill my kids either.

MCA wrote:Every advice I ever received from a professional is that they're fairly pointless.

The goal of a lot of financial professionals with regards to college is to get as much paid for as you can. 529 goes right to the school. Plus, no real guarantee that any one of my kids will go to college, or go without some sort of a scholarship. I mean, i think they'll go, but I can't guarantee it to the point that I want to lock 10k a year up in something that will be penalized if you don't use it for schooling.

Plus, I'm still paying off loans at 33. Its not killing me....won't kill my kids either.

my wife has 4 brothers and sisters and they were gonna start a 529 plan for us for our daughter's christening gift. I'm guessing they'll start it with about $500 combined. They wanted us to pick out a plan. I guess there are a few different options. After that, I don't know how much we would contribute annually. Not close to ten grand though. You think it doesn't make any sense for us to do this? It wasn't my idea, they came up with it. Obv I'd rather they write us a check and we put it in the baby's savings acct.

"You stay bought into it when you see your opponent sucking air and physically failing, and you're still fit and ready, and you know you own his ass."-Former Bama LB Cory Reamer on Coach Cochran's training program

mcm my understanding of their origination wasn't so much of a "wow we really need to figure out how to help people pay for college" but just like Health Savings Accounts (for the most part) it was "wow these rich dudes are maxed out of 401k and really want another tax preferred plan."

The way it was explained to me was basically "Do you really think you're going to be able to cover the whole $500,000 nut of what a private college is going to cost minimum in 13 years? If not, why bother....you're better off shuffling things around when they're 11 so you can block as much as possible from the college and get financial aid."

CNBC et al. running around like chickens with their heads cut off regarding the markets. looks to me that the "recovery" was more a market phenomenon and never took place for the general populace. this isn't a double dip, instead a maintenance of the status quo. it's been shitty for a few years, and will be shitty for a while going forward.

consumers have augmented their attitudes, but I think the period of fear for them is over.